The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1887-03-03
FOOD FROM DIRT AND WATER.
EDISON HAS INVENTED MACHINE TO MAKE
ALL KINDS OF FOOD-MEAT TO BE NO
LONGER KILLED NOR VEGETABLES
RAISED.

Edison is made to describe new
machine which he calls the nutricator.
This machine, the writer says has &C
complished tn problem of combining the
natural elements so as to manufacture
wholesome food. Edison is made to say
In this interview: In ten years my
machines Will be used to provide the
tables of the civilized world. Meat will
be no longer killed and vegetables no
longer grown, except by savages, for my
method Will be so much cheaper" Mr.
Edison then exhibited samples of food
which he said he had made from dirt in
his cellar and from water taken from the
waterpipes in the house. The writer
says: He led me down pair OF stars
into light basement-room where a
swarthy looking man was busy about a
big machine, an iron vessel, holding about
a barrel, attached to something that
looked like hydraulic ram. The shelves
were lined with chemicals. There was a
small battery in the corner from which
one wire went to the vat. A kerosene
lamp burned under sort of retort
That and four crooked pipes with handles
was all that was visible.
How is it now?" said Edison. about
3d." replied the man. That was all.
We returned to the room above. Il
shall simplify that machine one-half," be
remarked. yet with that I can turn
out at least five tons of food of various
kinds every day. | have already made
eighteen kinds of food. / will tell you
something If you will not say word till
| say go ahead All food comes, of
course, primarily, from the earth. The
plants and fruits we eat come from the
moist ground, and the animals we eat
hD. Il
which the plants have kept alive So all
food comes from the elements stored in
earth, air, and water. You eat grain OF
wheat, for instance The wheat is mainly
composed of few simple gases and salts
that last year were lying dormant in the
earth, the air, and the water.
1T occurred to me that this process
might be fastened; that instead of wait
ing year Tor nature to collect those
elements into an organic seed [ could
collect them In an hour, or perhaps a few
minutes, and arrive at the same result
by combining them organically. This |
have done. l first find out VITA par
ticular kind of food is made of. There
are slxty-tive simple elements in nature;
that is, substances which we call simple
elements, because we have not yet sue
ceeded in proving them to be compound.
L am afraid your readers will not gener-
ally understand what | am going to say.
If you use it be careful to take it down
verbatim.
There are sixty-five elements. Carbon
is the king of these. 1t is the great
organizer. 1t is never absent from any
plant or animal organism. 1t is at the
base of almost everything. 1t is the key
to my discovery, for it possesses the
l11r - 4
It's own atoms. The diamond is pure
carbon, so are graphite and charcoal
nearly puue carbon, though they are so
different. Sugar and starch belong to
the hydrocarbons, and / cannot under
stand why their manufacture out of earth
and water hasn't been hit on before |
form all my meat compounds by exposing
three elements IN a red hot state to
| nitrogen gas, though | use different
| ttavOrs, which L get from the earth, too
L have had to bring from Westminster
County some argillaceous soil not found
here.
Il can make a wine and have made it.,
With New Jersey earth and water that no
man can tell from Chateau Yquem. |
find that those elements combine at the
lowest temperature that have the same
atomicity-that is, the same bonds by
which they unite with one another or
| with compound molecules. This great
invention has not been hit on before
because analytic chemistry has received
too much attention to the exclusion of
synthetic chemistry; men have been more
devoted to learning than to doing
Lavoisler was just on the edge of it and
missed. Sir Humphrey Davy, Liebeg,
and Faraday were all in sight of it and
nj inv
IN making urea out of the elements and
| several other inorganic substances. but
they stopped at that They overlooked
| the simplicity of this thing.
Il think that In two or three years New
Workers, for instance, Will no longer eat
meat or vegetables. They will not send
to the tropics for fruits or to Europe for
wines, because the head of every family.
by turning crank Tor perhaps without
turning crank, if a clock apparatus is
attached), can produce more delicious
fruits and wines at tenth of the cost,
Sir Isaac Newton said: The proper
ties of all food are in the dirt under our
feet and IN the air over our heads-but
they elude our our grasp | was led on
by DaltOns great discovery of the law of
multiple proportions, that the atomic
weight of compounds Is the same as the
atomic weight OF their ingredients. |
was helped also by the we'll kuown law
of lsomoTphism, that certain groups of
substances exist, any member of which
can be replaced by any other member in
equivalent proportions without changing
the crystalline character of the matter
The extraordinary analogy between
homologOus groups of organic compounds
and certain small groups of the elements,
as chlorine, bromine and iodine, have
been remarked by many chemists. Not
only isolated triads, but all the elements,
may be brought into such homOlogous
series expressed by the general formula
of AxNb. However, this is beyond the
average reader and will hardly be in
telhgible.
mo change of food is contemplated.
Every man can have food of the kind to
which he is accustomed or which he pre-
fers. 1t viii be as easy to produce cab
bage as oranges, and pork as partridges
We shall actually produce these very
things but IN a new form. 1t will be
cabbageS and oranges that have never
felt the wind and rain, and pork and
partrldges that have never been alive
We merely take a short cut and snatch
the food from the earth without giving it
the trouble of growing. 1t will lack fibre
which is the only perceptible difference.
THE equivalent value of an element is
now measured by the number of atoms
Of a monatomic or equivalent element
with which it will combine 1t is known
for instance, that chloride combines with
one atom of hydrogen, oxygen with two,
nitrogen with three, carbon with four,
and so on. | have struck some astonish-
ing examples of allatrophism, that is, the
j
pounds from nearly similar elements.
Nature is full of surprises. For instance,
l make bananas and chocolate ont of the
very same ingredients, and the methods
of combining differs only tritie."